HideIPVPN Review - What Does it Offer?
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HideIPVPN is one of the smaller VPN providers, but one with an excellent reputation, so we decided to review its features and put its servers to the test.
The VPN is from the US, but it servers customers from all over the world.
Access content across the globe at the highest speed rate.
70% of our readers choose Private Internet Access
70% of our readers choose ExpressVPN
Browse the web from multiple devices with industry-standard security protocols.
Faster dedicated servers for specific actions (currently at summer discounts)
However, it is worth noting, that its VPN philosophy is somewhat different that the one represented by the largest operators. Let’s see what we discovered in our HideIPVPN review.
We have set up an account with HideIPVPN to see if it delivers what it promises and what will be our general experience with this VPN provider.
HideIPVPN background information
Before starting the actual review, let’s discuss some background information about HideIPVPN.
HideIPVPN entered the VPN game at the beginning of 2009. Since day one it has focused on two key points.
- It started with a standard VPN service. Today, however, it offers full package VPN + Smart DNS + proxy service with support for all VPN protocols on all their servers.
- Give customers exactly what they need for a very competitive price.
- Be as user-friendly and personal as possible.
Since the very beginning, it was helping people out with an offer of free VPN accounts.
Even these days, if you are following its social channels and blog you can still win a free Premium VPN account.
Like some other VPN providers, it ? does not keep any logs of your VPN online activity.
But more about that is below.
Let’s review HideIPVPN’s plans first.
HideIPVPN free trial and money-back guarantee
These days an online service without such a basic promise of quality would not survive on the market. HideIPVPN delivers great quality here, both in the VPN service itself and in the trial offer.
First, you can go for a full Premium VPN + Smart DNS trial.
Registering for this option gives you 24 hours of unlimited access to their best and most comprehensive package.
You can test all their VPN servers, their VPN/Smart DNS applications for different systems, and of course, the Smart DNS service itself, which we must say works excellently!
Your second choice and again, we need to say it is very interesting, is the choice of Smart DNS service only.
The reason for this is that with HideIPVPN you can buy either VPN with Smart DNS service included in the package or Smart DNS only, with no VPN access.
If you will register for the Smart DNS trial, HideIPVPN will give you whole 7 days of unlimited access.
In both cases, all you need to register for a free trial is just an e-mail address as no payment details (like credit or debit card) are required.
Add to this 30-day money-back guarantee and we have a superb offer that builds trust in the company.
Interface and setup
As we have mentioned above, HideIPVPN offers free VPN applications for different platforms.
Similar to other companies, you will be able to download a client for Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android.
They are all very easy to set up and use.
Also, we like the fact that they look very similar. That means switching from one platform to another is smooth and easy.
VPN client for Windows or Mac offers a few features that we would like to point out as very useful and cool to be present (see Features section).
But before we get to that we need to say, that regardless of the platform used their apps were super stable, fast, and super easy to use.
Once downloaded either from their website or app stores with just a few clicks you are good to go. All you need is your login and password.
After that, all you need to do is to choose the country you want your IP address from and the server itself.
Depending on the platform you will use, you will also have a choice of using different VPN protocols.
Important not though. HideIPVPN software for MacOS and Windows will also allow you to use their Smart DNS service.
This is very useful if you want to take your laptop away from your home network (where we suggest changing DNS settings on your home router).
This way with just a few clicks you can use the full, unblocking potential of the Smart DNS service it provides.
Overall, we like how both mobile and desktop applications work and look.
Those of you, who are a bit more advanced and who want to keep control will find detailed instructions of manual VPN setup for all available systems.
HideIPVPN review of pricing and plans
HideIPVPN offers 5 different VPN plans and Smart DNS as a separate service. It is very easy to find out what each plan stands for.
HideIPVPN
Protect your data and bypass restrictions with this simple and reliable VPN!VPN & Smart DNS
This is their top-of-the-range plan, the one they recommend, as it includes access to 100% of all HideIPVPN features and services.
It starts at $5.83/month (if paid yearly) and goes up to $9.99 with a monthly billing cycle.
This plan includes access to all 29 VPN servers located in the USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands.
You can use streaming, torrents, and P2P and unblock any website and service available in those countries. Of course, you can use all VPN protocols as well as proxy servers in all locations and Smart DNS service.
If you do need such a big plan, you may choose more specific VPN packages.
They are as follows:
#US VPN; #UK VPN, #Poland VPN and #P2P/BitTorrent VPN
All cost the same, starting at $3.33/month (in the yearly billing cycle) and going up to $5.99 with the monthly billing cycle.
As you can imagine there are some differences between those plans.
US VPN & UK VPN offer access to VPN servers in US or UK only. In both countries, you can use one of the 9 VPN servers available.
Access to proxy servers is of course present. Smart DNS service included in those plans will be restricted to US or UK only.
Poland VPN is a bit more restricted as it offers only two servers in the package, access to proxy as well as Smart DNS service, again restricted to Poland.
We have asked HideIPVPN why only 2 servers in this plan.
Their answer is quite logical.
They say that at present, those servers cope fine with the demand for bandwidth and the number of customers. If the demand will grow they will add new servers. As they wish to keep the price competitive adding more servers that would not be used would mean splitting the higher cost over existing customers.
#P2P/BitTorrent plan
As the name suggests this plan was designed for torrent and P2P users. It offers access to 8 VPN servers. 5 VPN servers in the Netherlands and 3 in Germany. You can use torrent traffic without any limitations in complete safety and anonymity provided by VPN servers.
Proxy servers are also included in this plan but not Smart DNS service. Presumably, there aren’t any interesting streaming sites in those locations.
HideIPVPN payment options
Payment options list looks good, all the ones you’d want to use are present.
That means you can pay via PayPal, Bitcoin, Credit & Debit cards, WebMoney, Alipay, Netteller, and others.
Bitcoin payment combined with the NO LOGS policy is the most private and anonymous combination.
HideIPVPN features
This is where we think HideIPVPN stands out among other VPN providers. We were positively surprised with some standard features brought to the next level.
In general, you can expect all the same features offered and provided by other VPN operators.
These are:
- Instant VPN account activation
- Unlimited traffic on servers with bandwidth up to 1Gbps
- No traffic logs
- Help & support available 24/7
- No long-term contract
- 30 days full money-back guarantee
- Free apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android
- Use your VPN account on up to 3 devices at the same time
- Access Smart DNS on an unlimited number of devices at the same time
- Enjoy Poxy servers and Smart DNS service for free with your VPN plan
- Highest security level with AES 256-bit and RSA 4096-bit encryption
- 5 VPN protocols – OpenVPN, SSTP, SoftEther, L2TP/IPsec, and PPTP
This is pretty much the VPN standard. There are some VPN providers offering less in terms of security for example. Also, there are those offering a bit more, mostly a number of VPN servers.
However, it is worth considering if it makes sense to pay more for such a feature. If you can use up to 3 VPN connections simultaneously what difference does it make (other than the price!) if you have a choice of 30 VPN servers or 300 VPN servers?
As long as they are in locations you want to use and as long as they are fast, everything is OK.
Basically, with services offering hundreds of VPN servers (often in very exotic locations) you pay for things you don’t use.
Only you know if it makes sense in your specific situation.
But, as we just said it is also where HideIPVPN is better than others. So, what do we have in mind?
If you’ll decide to use their free VPN Windows software, you will notice first cool feature. An option to sort VPN servers by speed. What does it mean exactly and how does this work?
HideIPVPN offers all VPN servers with a bandwidth of up to 1 Gbps. That is really a lot. Probably a lot more than the bandwidth of your home broadband connection.
If so, why would you want to sort out servers by speed?
As you may or may not know, the VPN connection between you (your device) and the VPN server is not exactly direct.
Data you exchange through an encrypted VPN tunnel pass through many other network servers and nodes.
And the route might be a bit different each day and is different between your device and different VPN servers.
The fewer such servers and nodes to pass through, the more direct connection is the better the overall speed of your VPN connection.
Without the “sort by speed feature” you’d need to check all servers in the country you need IP from manually.
Connect, do a speed test, disconnect, and next server. This would be very time-consuming.
With this task performed automatically by the VPN app within seconds, you can see which server is currently optimal for your specific location.
We really, really like this option!
The second thing we truly liked is called “App Killer” and should be one of the very important for all those of you using P2P networks and torrents.
If you do not want to download/upload torrents under your own IP address, for obvious reasons, with many VPN services that means sitting in front of the PC to monitor traffic and connection.
After all, a VPN connection can drop or your own broadband might stop working for a few seconds.
In such cases, if you are away, it may happen that all your downloads will be done not under VPN protection but under your own IP.
That means setting up multiple downloads and going to work/school might be out of the question. But not with HideIPVPN service.
If you use their VPN software and set up “App Killer” the VPN application will do the job for you! If anything happens to the connection, the torrent clients will be shot down immediately.
But it is only half of the success as the app can try to re-establish a VPN connection (as many times as needed) and once VPN is active again restart the previously killed task.
Isn’t that cool?
HideIPVPN security and encryption standards
With HideIPVPN you can use any of the most popular VPN protocols OpenVPN, SSTP, SoftEther, L2TP/IPsec, and PPTP.
You can also enjoy high security provided by AES 256-bit and RSA 4096-bit encryption.
Provider suggests SoftEther VPN protocol as the number one choice where security and privacy are a priority.
Worth to know is, that currently, all VPN servers provided by HideIPVPN offer the latest upgrade to SoftEther VPN protocol.
Also, free VPN software provided can secure your VPN connection from DNS leaks.
Privacy – HideIPVPN review
As with any good VPN service, HideIPVPN takes anonymity and privacy very seriously.
If it is the reason you are looking for a VPN service yourself, we can assure you that you will not regret choosing HideIPVPN.
HideIPVPN encrypted VPN connections will secure you and your data from any prying eyes. Be that your local ISP or any censorship system active in your country.
No logs policy, combined with Bitcoin payments and use of shared IP address of VPN server means you are quite secure and anonymous.
As we have previously said, the fact that the company is registered in the USA is a big plus as they are truly not required by law to store any traffic logs, unlike their EU-registered competition.
HideIPVPN customer support
This is another, VERY strong point in favour of the HideIPVPN service.
Their customer support is extremely user-friendly and professional. If you peek at their social channels you will notice that they treat every single customer like the most important one they have.
Each question is answered fully, honestly, and patiently. We can say the same about their actual technical support available via support tickets or chat.
We need to say that this personalized, patient, and friendly approach made a huge and of course positive impression on us.
Even difficult questions like the one regarding Netflix are answered fully and honestly within seconds.
The policy of some providers here (which we do not like) is to avoid straight answers for as long as possible. Also, you may notice that in most cases questions like that asked publicly will only be answered in private conversation mode.
Not with HideIPVPN.
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HideIPVPN review conclusions
So, is there anything we did not like or can complain about?
Perhaps, at first, we thought that the total number of VPN server available were not as good as it could be. And probably for some people, looking at numbers only this might be a deciding factor.
However, if you read our review of the service you should know that it is not the most important factor when choosing a VPN provider.
Just make sure you have a VPN server in the country of interest for you. We were honestly impressed with the whole HideIPVPN package.
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